Many people have struggled to use technology well in school. But in most schools, the machines sit in a room and are used in a very structured way. The technology tends to be old. The administrators will not allow the use of social media and many teachers are very hesitant about all of this.
The irony is that now technology is part of life as it is lived. Nearly all kids have some access and the world outside depends on it. If you want to use a bank, get a job, make things, book a trip, pay your taxes, read a book, meet people - we increasingly rely on the web.
Many of the skills that will be important in the future depend on the web. Design, film and voice production, making things, writing and publishing. Even knowing how to use the web as a research tool. Who teaches these things at school? No one.
Kids also have to learn to be "Street Smart" on the web. Who teaches this now? The quick answer is no one.
Many of us have begged the school system to open up. To fit technology seamlessly into the work of the student rather than to make it just another separate subject. Many of us have begged the school system to open up the network. Many of us have hoped that teachers would take the lead. Many of us had hoped that government would allocate more funding.
But we have failed to make any progress. We have found out that the system has a phobia about the web.
So what to do?
This is where you come in. Maureen Kerr has a plan. She is going to take the new "Web School" to your kids. She is going to go around the system to go direct to your family.
She has reinvented the new One Room School House. She plans to fit out a Mobile School Room (A Converted RV). It will have laptops and it will have some of the most talented teachers of technology on PEI. It will come to your neighbourhood. It will help your kids learn what they need to learn to get them ready for the 21st century and not the 19th.
If you back it. For of course the powers that be will not.
Here is a link to her Indiegogo campaign - $100 will fund a student and $400 will buy a laptop.
This Christmas please think about what you can do to help. My bet is that, if Maureen can get this launched, then we will shame the system into responding. Your $400 will buy more than a laptop - it will help unlock the system and in the end your $400 will help all kids on PEI.
What could be more important?
